Mrs. Prentiss was naturally a shy and reserved woman, and necessarily a pre-occupied one.  Therefore she was sometimes misunderstood.  But those who—­knew her best, and were blest with her rare intimacy, knew her as “a perfect woman nobly planned.”  Her conversation was charming.  Her close study of nature taught her a thousand happy symbols and illustrations, which made both what she said and wrote a mosaic of exquisite comparisons.  Her studies of character were equally constant and penetrating.  Nothing escaped her; no peculiarity of mind or manner failed of her quick observation, but it was always a kindly interest.  She did not ridicule that which was simply ignorance or weakness, and she saw with keen pleasure all that was quaint, original, or strong, even when it was hidden beneath the homeliest garb.  She had the true artist’s liking for that which was simple and genre.  The common things of common life appealed to her sympathies and called out all her attention.  It was a real, hearty interest, too—­not feigned, even in a sense generally thought praiseworthy.  Indeed, no one ever had a more intense scorn of every sort of feigning.  She was honest, truthful, genuine to the highest degree.  It may have sometimes led her into seeming lack of courtesy, but even this was a failing which “leaned to virtue’s side.”  I chanced to know of her once calling with a friend on a country neighbor, and finding the good housewife busy over a rag-carpet.  Mrs. Prentiss, who had never chanced to see one of these bits of rural manufacture in its elementary processes, was full of questions and interest, thereby quite evidently pleasing the unassuming artist in assorted rags and home-made dyes.  When the visitors were safely outside the door, Mrs. Prentiss’ friend turned to her with the exclamation, “What tact you have!  She really thought you were interested in her work!” The quick blood sprang into Mrs. Prentiss’ face, and she turned upon her friend a look of amazement and rebuke.  “Tact!” she said, “I despise such tact!—­do you think I would look or act a lie?”

She was an exceedingly practical woman, not a dreamer.  A systematic, thorough housekeeper, with as exalted ideals in all the affairs which pertain to good housewifery as in those matters which are generally thought to transcend these humble occupations.  Like Solomon’s virtuous woman she “looked well after the ways of her household.”  Methodical, careful of minutes, simple in her tastes, abstemious, and therefore enjoying evenly good health in spite of her delicate constitution—­this is the secret of her accomplishing so much.  Yet all this foundation of exactness and diligence was so “rounded with leafy gracefulness” that she never seemed angular or unyielding.

With her children she was a model disciplinarian, exceedingly strict, a wise law-maker; yet withal a tender, devoted, self-sacrificing mother.  I have never seen such exact obedience required and given—­or a more idolized mother.  “Mamma’s” word was indeed Law, but—­O, happy combination!—­it was also Gospel!